icky Kaks,
This week, inspired by many a comment at your immense and towering height, I held you up against Sunny’s growth chart. You, my dear, are the height Addison was when she was 19 months old. As a reminder, this letter is to mark your 15 month of life, so whoa Jill and the Bean Stalk! We’re going to need to renovate our house before you hit puberty as I’m convinced the ceilings of our little farm house just won’t cut it when you’re full grown without inflicting scoliosis. It’s so completely awesome that both you and your sister will be tall, statuesque women. Middle school will be tough. I know, I lived it with every boy at chest height. Slow dancing equals WAY awkward. But, I promise, there will come a time in your life when you will embrace and take pride in your six foot plus stature. You’re already on your way!
This has been a month of costumes, and you made quite the oxymoronic Wolf (far too cute to be big and bad), and you were the Eeyore of the cow world at Homecoming. I must admit that I will miss the simple joy of dressing up my stumbling one year old in ridiculous animal apparel. I fear that by next year that stubborn and noisy personality of yours will have taken control of all wardrobe decisions, so I won’t get such an unburdened hand in the process.
Because when I say that you are stubborn and noisy that does not adequately describe the way in which you furiously hurl food from the table if it doesn’t suit your palette, or mommy or daddy dare try to feed you, don’t we know that you can do this yourself? Or the way you scream with the fervor of a hopeless barn cat being mauled by a pack of coyotes when you get bored in your car seat. One would think that your seat had grown claws and carnivorous teeth with the way you carry on. You insist on climbing all furniture, specifically so that you can stand on top of any table surface, pulling every bottle, can, and jar out of the recycling, rummaging around under the sinks, and flinging every single book off the shelf at least three times a day. If we try to stop you, well, ready your earplugs, because the resulting trifecta (pouting/screaming/flailing) is ferocious. Better you make a mess or perfect your trapeze-balancing skills than I intervene.
And once again, I find myself writing about the more unpleasant extremes of your personality, which just is not fair, because, my dear, when you are good, you are so very very good. You can now feed the dogs without any assistance. You know which bowl is Hanna’s and that it goes on the floor, and you understand that Ursa’s goes up on the bench. You clap and smile with utmost pride every time you finish the mealtime routine, patting the dogs’ backs while cooing “Oh whoa whoa!!” And I cannot get enough of the way you dance and shake and shimmy during our daily family dance parties. You are so intent on learning to jump like the rest of us. You bend at the waist and fling your arms skyward in an attempt to defy gravity and yet, for now, your feet stay firmly planted to the ground. I will be sad the day you loose those concrete appendages. You imitate Emilio’s crow and every time Ursa barks you declare NA! NA! to try to silence her. You sit in your “reading chair” once a day, quietly flipping through pages in your board books. You hug and kiss and laugh and smile and play with your big sister. When you are happy and cheerful, it is impossible for us to be anything but the same, no matter how grey or dreary the day (which these days, is quite the frequent occurrence). Thanks for being my all natural sunlamp.
Sadly, the past week has been marked by a stopped up digestive system. You have been suffering at the hand of your preferred diet of bananas, cheese and bread. And it has been a pitiful and stressful sight to behold. We’ve been inflicting some serious dietary changes and I’ve taken to wearing earplugs at mealtime to combat your protestations (see paragraph 3). But let me tell you something, kid, if you ever doubt for a second how much your father and I love you, take solace in the fact that he and I have now each helped pull feces from your struggling, stopped up bum to alleviate your suffering faster. And while this may embarrass you horribly that I wrote about prying poop from your butt for the whole wide Internet to read, I guarantee that I am not the first nor the last parent to demonstrate this kind of loyalty and love. I would do anything to ease your pain and comfort your cries, including directly assisting in your bowel movements. THAT, my darling, is love. And I wish I could state it in a more eloquent and refined fashion, but I think this sums it up quite perfectly.
Wishing you a more regular month and all my love,
143 Mama
